We arrived in Picton and first things first, we headed straight to the i site so I could fill the glove with south island maps and info. Picton is a lovely coastal town and literally on arrival we could see the difference between the two islands.

Most people told us that south island is a lot greener, the roads are busier and it's more mountainous and they were right. We decided to drive south to Blenham which a the main wine region on the south island, we were planning to get a site to pitch the tent close by the vineyards but we couldn’t find a site, and there was no public transport to take us to them which was strange. Tours were available at a cost but as we did wine tasting in South America we decided to give it a miss and head to Havelock which is on the north coast. We drove along Queen Charlotte Drive which is an amazing winding road that took us around Charlotte Sounds. We had incredible views of Emerald waters with snow-capped mountains everywhere. The journey took a lot longer as we kept stopping to take photographs every mile.

We found a hostel that let us pitch tent in the back garden for the night, I couldn’t work out if the manager was stupid or just didn’t care but he was so laid back. He showed us how to bypass paying full amount on his washing machines gave us the wrong directions for a walk and left hundreds of postcards on a stand in reception at night....there in the post guys! Never the less it was cheap. Tony kept overheating the whole way from Picton to Havelock so we were both starting to get a little worried, Justin filled the radiator up with water and our fingers were crossed.